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Thursday, August 3, 2017

After realizing film was her
true calling, the first lady of Czech cinema Věra Chytilová enrolled in
the Film and TV School of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague (FAMU) in
1957. At the time, she was the only woman at the school and was faced with
resistance. She was pushed back, but she wanted to direct and had ambitions to
make different kinds of movies. Chytilová recalls potentially upsetting the directors at the academy when she
told them the reason she wanted to study was because she didn’t like the films
they made, feeling that they were predictable and arranged. When the Academy
wanted to throw her out, it was a major blow for her that resulted in depression
and a suicide attempt. She ultimately resisted being driven out and graduated,
in the process directing successful medium length films Ceiling (1961) (of which she also wrote) and A Bagful of Fleas (1962). A
Bagful of Fleas and her first feature length film as director Something Different (1963) both won
film critics awards.Chytilová married cinematographer Jaroslav Kucera (Morgiana 1972); they worked well together and collaborated on The Restaurant the World (1965), Daisies (1966), and Fruit of Paradise (1970).Daisies is Chytilová’s most popular and well-known film. It is a
staple in the Czech New Wave movement that’s a fun, technically impressive film
with an unconventional narrative about two young, disorderly female leads sticking-it-to-the-man,
with copious amounts of style and entertainment ensuing. The movie is supposed
to be a cautionary tale on the consequences of destructive behavior, but for
me, it’s one of those films you fall in love with and get hooked on.

The
final set-piece where the girls trespass/crash an extravagant banquet seemingly
laid out out-of-nowhere contributed to Daisies
being banned for the depiction of wasted food. Daisies was later unbanned with media restrictions being loosened
during the Prague Spring in 1968.Chytilová’s last film before she was sidelined by the Czechoslovakian
authorities from making films for eight years was Fruit of Paradise (Afterwards when she started making films again
she shot Apple Game (1976) and it
was a big box office success).

Like with Ján Kadár’s Adrift
/ A Desire Called Anada (1971), the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in
August of ‘68 took place during the filming of Fruit of Paradise. However, they were filming in a location outside
of the turmoil and were basically uninterrupted (footage included in a
documentary of Věra Chytilová by Jasmina Blazevic called Cesta shows Chytilová on the set
of Fruit of Paradise pregnant at the
time with her son Štěpán Kučera,
who was born July 1st of ’68).

The country’s invasion can be felt from the
contrast between Daisies and Fruit of Paradise. In an interview Chytilová
states “the invasion is in The Fruit of Paradise.” Something was happening to
Czechoslovakia that could not be openly talked about, so in order to impart the
brutalization of her homeland, the message was framed around the biblical story
of Adam and Eve. The apple becomes a vessel for truth so that when it is eaten,
Adam and Eve recognize “that we live in a lie, that we are violently raped.”

Eva
(Jitka Novákova) and her husband
Josef (Karel Novak-voiced by Josef
Somr) enjoy life in a surreal spa resort setting, a modern take on the
paradisiacal Garden of Eden. There is an outwardly charming enemy among them,
the proverbial snake, Robert (Jan Schmid-voiced
by Jan Klusák), dressed in red. Eva is infatuated by Robert’s antics and
childlike appeal, so when she’s faced with evidence that Robert is a murderer
of women, she has trouble bringing herself to accept this truth at first. The
truth is ugly and hard to come to terms with. It is something that one wishes
to forget after knowing it.

The allegorical message of Fruit of Paradise was either lost-on or denied-by its audience. The
movie was not just some kind of simple murder mystery. It did poorly because no
one could understand what it meant. I didn’t know what it meant when I first
saw it either, but it didn’t matter to me because it was still a rather
mesmerizing Avant-garde experience with a beautifully surreal story by Ester Krumbachová and memorable and
technically impressive cinematography by Jaroslav
Kucera. Like the previous Daisies,
there is a lot of originality and salubrious visual and emotional content to
absorb in every sequence and set piece, and yet it is so unlike Daisies. In short, it’s a colorful,
earthy, and captivating work of art with a lot to say in addition to its
poignant underlying message.

There’s a remarkable Adam and Eve segment at the
beginning that depicts the traditional account in contrast to the film’s new
take on the story that will follow. During this segment, the sound and visuals
gel into a wondrous experience with an evocative double exposure effect that
almost makes this feel like magically found footage of Adam and Eve in the
Garden of Eden. This opening portion alone can stand as its own short film
masterpiece.

The movie centers on Eva. She’s a likeable and sympathetic lead. I
honestly cannot think of a moment, aside from the intro segment, where she’s
not in the movie. This is her story. Even during conversations and events that
don’t involve her, she’s usually off to the side watching. She’s rather
enigmatic, yet there’s still something intriguing and attention grabbing about
her; Novákovais is a theatrically
physical and vibrant actress, which makes her unique and appealing. I love how
integrated Eva feels with nature. She’s frequently carrying food items from the
Earth, which almost makes me hungry for plant-based food, which doesn’t happen
too often.

Eva loves to wield apples, which is very Eve-like. The Eve image is
subverted a little by also giving Eva an affinity with the orange as well, kind
of like with Marie in Daisies
picking a peach from the Tree of Knowledge instead of the fabled apple.

Almost
in a kind of dance like state, Eva enjoys carrying a knife and frolicking and
swaying like an ethereal fairy in the woods. She’s quite childlike at certain
moments and rather happy-go-lucky most of the time in the first half or so.

She
almost seems a little bored by her husband, dressed in boring gray, and drawn
to the alluring bachelor in a more attention grabbing red, Robert, who’s kind
of like a playful prankster. He stands out in every scene he’s in and is kind
of like a set decoration himself. He’s got this peculiar habit of sometimes
leaving behind a long red serpentine cloth, almost like a shedding snake. Early
on, Robert is fun and cartoony at times in a slapstick way. Eva seems amused
and entertained watching him flirt with the peacock woman (the sound of the
peacock mating call manages to be an integral component to the soundtrack).

Despite
there being only three key players in the story, it is surprising just how many
extra people are in the movie, most of them strange additional spa resort goers. Eventually,
the entire cast is assembled on the beach to play and act like children in
their own imagined paradise. There’s a playful vibe that comes from the cheerful
visual of adults chaotically chasing after and bumping a big orange balloon,
but at the same time there’s a creepy underlying feeling that something isn’t
right.

During playtime on the beach, Robert unknowingly drops a key from his pocket.
Eva tries to alert him of it, but he’s too preoccupied with his injury and
walks off, so, like an animal attracted to shiny things, Eva picks it up. She
then enters Robert's dwelling with the key and finds his red satchel that she was
attracted to earlier on. She opens it to find an inkpad and a stamp and uses it
to provocatively mark her outer thigh with a red six, a symbol of weakness,
Satan, and sin. It doesn’t wash off.

About halfway through the film, a murder
mystery is introduced when the newspaper announces that another blond has been
killed. It is revealed in the news that the most recent victim had a red number
six printed on her forehead. After hearing this, Eva is reminded of her own
number six stamp, making her uneasy about Robert.

One morning, Eva’s husband
confesses to sinning against her, which I’m assuming means he committed
adultery, as he was getting scented letters from someone and came off as a
womanizer on the beach. This and her uncertainty with Robert being a murderer starts
to weigh heavy, resulting in a fantastically freaky scene with Eva writhing and
contorting to some kind of insane blurred motion effect and chilling music.
Shortly after, Josef accuses her of seeing Robert, as it becomes apparent that
she is starting to receive a considerable amount of abuse from her husband. I
love that instead of screaming, Eva unloads on a set of drums in the attic, and
it is badass. She also goes ‘90s grunge on it by throwing drum heads around.

Josef
actually did have an affair, whereas Eva did not seem to, so it is pretty
unfair for her to be judged for adultery. After having enough of the abuse, she
packs her bags and leaves, but Josef and Robert intervene and basically turn
her around by force. It’s movie magic when Eva drops her cylindrical suitcase
and it rolls down the hill as the camera follows it.

Robert and Josef become
friends oddly enough, and Eva’s likely feeling on that are best portrayed in
the screengrab below that also reminded me of particular artwork from Through the Looking Glass (1871). She’s stuck with these bozos.

Eva becomes captive to
her situation. She puts on a façade of sorts and tries to make Josef and Robert
jealous by dressing in pink and flirting with other men. They don’t seem to buy
it but end up more amused laughing and mocking her. Anytime she fights back
against Josef, he laughs as if she’s behaving foolishly.

Fruit of Paradise climaxes with a theatrical showdown between Eva
and Robert. The climax is quite riveting and it sidesteps a little into horror
film territory.

In her denial of truth, she still becomes drawn to Robert
despite what she knows about him being a killer. The heavy stone Robert was seen
laboriously and kind of comically pushing around he prepared in a lonely spot
for Eva after she asks him to kill her.

For the climax, there’s a certain
1920’s expressionism feel to it, like we are watching a silent movie with music.
Certain segments during the climax seem to be filmed in a reduced frame rate to
give it the vintage silent movie feel. There’s lost information and things
appear blurry, surreal, and also quite inebriating.

Eva outsmarts Robert. She
prevails and returns to her husband and, in a visual that really stuck with me,
waves her red rose brooch to him in a hyper stylized manner that almost
reminded me of the Goblin King brandishing a crystal ball.

From the traditional
creationist story, Eve was blamed for all of mankind’s follies, but perhaps
unfairly. She was the one brave enough to eat the apple to gain wisdom and free
us from the paradise that, looking back on, was like a prison anyway. In the
film, Eva is blamed and treated unfairly. She’s essentially done nothing wrong.
When she’s returned, Josef notices that she has undergone a metamorphosis and acquired
the forbidden knowledge, or better yet “the truth,” and judging by Josef’s
response, the truth is scary. She offers him the truth, and he cowardly turns
away from it.

Fruit of Paradise is quite
an experimental film, and the experiments frequently hit the mark. You’ll
realize how much of an incredible experience it is by the end. At times, the
movie might have the effect of causing you to stare, transfixed and wondering
what it is supposed to mean. The ways the story and drama are portrayed are
unusually fascinating. Red, white, pink, and black are abstractly used to
convey meaning and allegorical significance. There is also something operatic
about the whole thing since all of the dialogue was originally going to be
sung. The phenomenal music by Zdenek
Liska really heightens so many key moments. In fact, the cinematography,
directing, and editing sometimes has a music video quality to it that almost
feels like watching MTV as a kid again and just being drawn in by how surreal
and weird it sometimes gets. Even if you end up not being taken in by the ambiguous
narrative, there’s still so much beauty to behold, so many emotions to feel,
and so much to absorb each time.

One of Fruit
of Paradise’s chief characteristics is its ambiguity, and I’ll admit that a
lot of what I’ve said here could very likely be incorrect. However, Fruit of Paradise is also known for
being open to interpretation, and if that is true then as long as the writer is
sincere, there can be no wrong answer.

Wednesday, June 7, 2017

When it comes to the unique definitive Renato Polselli experience of histrionics, eroticism, violence, and
sadomasochism, movies like Delirium
(1972), TheReincarnation of Isabel (1972), and even The Truth According to Satan (1972) are the best examples of Polselli films that have
created a small but loyal fanbase. These have long been some of my favorite
cult films, but I also adore the romantic black and white early Italian horror
efforts from PolselliThe Vampire and the Ballerina (1960)
and The Monster of The Opera (1964).
The seed for this auteur’s characteristic style of madness and set spectacles
was planted in Monster of the Opera,
the film itself still planted in the fun dance-meets-classic-monsters gimmick
featured in Vampire and the Ballerina,
but something wildly unhinged was taking shape. The entertaining delirium, screaming
mad characters, and disorienting editing that is Polselli’s signature would essentially be fully realized in Delirium and Reincarnation, but for the longest time there was a missing piece
of the filmography that Polselli fans
were literally deprived of for many, many years, a once lost film
called Mania.

Sanitized by the
censors and given a limited theatrical run in 1974, Mania quickly disappeared and was long considered lost until a 35-mm print surfaced in 2007 in a film archive in Rome, Cinema Trevi – Cineteca
Nazionale. It was going to be released on DVD by No Shame soon after, but they
went out of business before that could happen. Miraculously a crude version of Mania showed up on YouTube without
English subtitles back in September of last year. Thankfully, just recently,
Terence linked me to a decent version with subs (which is also now on YouTube),
and I honestly now feel like a significant void in my life has been filled.

Sunday, April 16, 2017

I’m not much in to demonology; I only remember a couple names
of demonic entities off the top of my head, like Beelzebub, Belial, and
Astaroth, but I had only heard about the demon Byleth in reference to the
Italian horror film Byleth – The Demon
of Incest (1972), and with the title to go off of, I pretty much thought of
Byleth as some sort of ghastly, incest inducing demon. I tried to look in to it
a little, but other than this film, I found very little relating Byleth to
incest. The connection of the theme of incest to Byleth in this film is perhaps
more in reference to the belief that the demonically possessed display sexually
deviant behavior.

As far as lore goes, the demon Byleth (sometimes spelled Beleth
or Bilet) is a monarch of Hell and a fallen angel. He rides a pale horse and
commands eighty-five legions of demons. The sounds of trumpets and melodies
precedes his presence when he is conjured. His pale horse suggests he could
possibly be one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, Death.

When summoned, Byleth
will test the courage and worthiness of the conjuror by appearing most
intimidating, frightful, and extremely pissed off, and if they are too
inexperienced and unprepared, the ritual will likely result in the conjuror’s
death (although it’s said that Byleth can be softened with a bottle of wine). If
through all manner of advanced esoteric ritual, they manage to subdue Byleth,
he reveals his true form, which is supposed to be that of a beautiful young
girl who has the power to make someone fall in love, kind of like a love genie.

Thursday, February 23, 2017

For me, The Devil’s
Wedding Night is kind of like a Dracula movie but with Rosalba Neri playing Dracula, which is just a prepossessing idea. However,
that’s not quite what it is, as it plays more like a spinoff, fanfic, or sequel
to Dracula, where Count Dracula is the stuff of legend, with his power being
the focus of archeological research. It’s interesting that in the film’s story Edgar Allan Poe seems to be an upcoming
new sensation, which sets it around the first half of the 19th century, making
it predate the events in Bram Stoker’s
novel that occur around the 1890s. So, The
Devil’s Wedding Night could actually be a prequel to Dracula. I mean, who
was that mysterious smirking man in the woods, at the tavern, and on the castle
grounds we kept seeing? The mysterious man is a nice touch who’s most likely a
servant to the ring, but there’s nothing ruling out that he could have been
Dracula the whole time, perhaps a powerless Dracula who needs the black mass wedding ceremony to be reborn.

Tuesday, February 21, 2017

A dear friend of mine has fallen on to hard times and is in
danger of losing her job now that her car has broken down. It’s looking to be a
costly clutch repair. I’ve never asked for any money in the past for my work
here, but please, if anyone has appreciated anything I’ve written on this site,
the best tip to me would be to help my friend with a GoFundMe donation by clicking HERE or on the image above.

Thursday, January 12, 2017

Manhattan
Baby
marks the end of an era, which was Lucio Fulci’s most prolific filmmaking
period that included classics such as Zombie(1979), The Gates of Hell (1980), The
Beyond (1981), and The House by the
Cemetery (1981). This isn’t to say these were Fulci’s best films; they were just some of the most commercially
successful, not to mention big hits with the general horror audience.

With Fulci being synonymous with gore,
zombies, and various sorts of gateways to hell, viewer expectations of Manhattan Baby were probably different
than what they got, as it abandons the gothic, supernatural zombie film
altogether. It was scriptwriter Dardano
Sacchetti’s attempt at moving away from what he considered conventional
horror, to try and close up the gates of hell and open new gates of time and
space. Although there are obvious influences from The Exorcist (1973) and The
Awakening (1980) (and surprising similarities to Poltergeist which came out the same year), Sacchetti wanted to create something different, and for the most
part he succeeded.

Saturday, December 3, 2016

Mario Colucci’sSomething Creeping in the Dark has been off the radar for a long time. I didn't even know about it until recently, and this is the kind of stuff I live for. This might be because it is rather mediocre in certain aspects, some might even say a little boring if this isn't your kind of thing. It's a curious little low-key Italian horror, and even though it's not that scary or original, it has its creepy
moments. The ambiance and familiar setting is comforting if you’re in the mood
for this type of movie. Also on the plus side, all the genre traditions we know and love are here:
séances, portraits, fleeting shades of black magic and the occult, contrived
gathering of suspicious characters, spirits, candles, storms, murders, babes, a spooky but marvelous gothic mansion, and night gowns. It really is a beautiful
looking gothic thriller despite being routine in the story department, but
there’s a lot to chew on with its concept, and there’s so many nice touches
that keep it afloat. At times, it’s got a strange charm to it, with near Polselli-like moments with actors
looking spaced out, standing around like model figurines.

Saturday, October 8, 2016

It seems like only yesterday when we were checking out The Devil of Kreuzberg (2015), a
respectably accomplished modern gothic horror film directed by Alexander Bakshaev that’s gotten a lot
of due praise, and now, seemingly out of nowhere, Alex and the great folks involved follow it up with a killer Jess Franco tribute S & M: Les Sadiques.

I had viewed a lot of compelling images of
this film when it was in production, and one of the images, which did not end
up in the cut of S & M that I
watched, displayed lead actor Nadine Pape
channeling an iconic image of late ‘60s, early ‘70s Franco lead Soledad Miranda,
and I thought it looked cool. It captured the original spirit but also had a
different energy about it that was trying to impart a new vision, something
that’s not only a great tribute but also works on a number of other levels,
which is something that could also be said about the overall film.